“Mal’s got a single on the top,” said Jude.
Mallory’s “dorm room,” if you could call it that, was about the size of a hotel suite where a president or a Beyoncé would stay. It had 360-degree views of the whole city. It was easily the nicest room Penny had ever been in. There were two black leather sofas, a white sheepskin rug, and a glass coffee table that would have made sense in a movie about drug trafficking. In fact, it was so shockingly opulent that it made Penny think of Jude differently. She couldn’t help it. Was there such a thing as a friendship gold digger? Penny put on her most convincing bored face. She invoked the vibe of a mega celebrity at an airport security line and willed her shoulders away from her ears.
Throughout the living room, there were silver-framed photos of Mallory at different ages. On a horse. In a library. In a velvet dress. With braces. Or a perm.
“I don’t know why,” said Mallory, waving her hand at the far wall, “but my mom thinks the only thing any little girl wants for Christmas every year is a photo of herself and a Lalique.”
Penny reminded herself to Google Lalique. It was either the breed of horse or a fashion designer.
“That’s about ten thousand dollars in Lalique frames,” said Jude, who’d flopped on Mallory’s couch. Okay, so a Lalique was a picture frame.
“It’s the memories that are priceless,” Penny quipped. She wondered if they’d go around the room saying how much everything cost. If Mallory’s dorm was The Price Is Right, there was no way Penny would win. Penny had grown up surrounded by IKEA. She sat gingerly next to Jude.
“Now for the pièce de résistance.” Mallory grabbed both of Penny’s hands and pulled her off the couch. Penny caught Jude’s eyes, trying to get a hint.
“She wants to show you her closet,” Jude said, checking her messages. Penny wondered if any of her messages were from Sam.
She let herself be dragged by Mallory’s vise grip.
So, there were walk-in closets and then there were drive-in theater closets.
“Holy crap,” breathed Penny. Mallory’s neatly organized battalions of designer shoes would have earned an appreciative whistle from Imelda Marcos, the kleptocrat wife of the former president of the Philippines who had hoarded three thousand pairs of shoes while her people starved.
“Is your dad in the mob or something?” Penny picked up a brown leather slipper lined in soft silver fur.
“That’s such an offensive question,” said Mallory, laughing. “But you’re not far off. He’s in oil.”
“Her family’s evil,” said Jude. “But if you met them, they’d be super polite to you.”
“Seriously,” said Mallory, nodding. “Now my dad, he’s actually racist.”
Penny let the comment hang. She wasn’t in the mood. Penny could overlook Mallory’s barbs for one night and dumb out. She needed the break from her head.
But Penny was underdressed; there was no denying it. If this was Mallory’s bedroom, she could only imagine how the party would be. She was wearing yet another black cotton dress. More or less a T-shirt that had grayed from being sent through the drier so many times. Plus, sneakers.
Penny searched for the selfie Sam had sent her. With his tattoos covered and in white shirtsleeves he seemed defenseless and normal. You could only see his chin and the horrible button-up, and it sent Penny into a rage. Why did he have to put on a costume for a date? If MzLolaXO required that he dress like everybody else, she clearly didn’t appreciate him for who he was. His distinctiveness was the best part. Penny thought of this Korean saying for when you really, really liked something. You’d say it “fit your heart exactly.” Sam fit her heart exactly. She wished she’d taken a creep shot of him at the café so she could have a better photo to fawn over.
Mallory emerged from the back part of her closet wearing a red ribbon corset. It was the underwear of a thirty-five-year-old French divorcée, and it amazed Penny what support garments and designer clothes could do for a physique. Mallory shimmied into a crimson column dress and the effect was impressive. She resembled a vamp from an eighties movie.
Penny wondered if she could borrow a special rich-people girdle for her thighs. She hated her thick legs. Her mom called them “athletic,” which, unless you’re an athlete, was more of an insult.
Jude bent over at several angles. She had thrown on an electric-blue dress made entirely of industrial-strength elastic. She peered at her ass in the mirror. “This is so constricting,” she said.
“Here, wear this,” said Mallory, tossing Penny a black floor-length slip. She fingered the material. It had the sheen and slipperiness of an oil slick. “What size shoe are you?”
? ? ?
Penny wriggled her toes. Fitting in to Mallory’s platform boots had called for two pairs of socks and stacks of those squishy gel pads. But it was worth it. They were stunning. Still, it was little wonder that Jude’s glamorous bestie was often in a foul mood. Pretty shoes were painful.
As they tottered to the right factory building on the East Side, Penny wondered if someone was playing an elaborate joke on them. Nothing about the space remotely suggested there was a party going on inside. Mallory pulled on the handle of what could only be described as a homicide factory on the docks. The only indication of a gathering was that the music was so loud that Penny could feel the back of her throat shudder along with the bass.
Mallory got on her phone. A moment later a willowy black twentysomething in a long black leather kilt pushed open the metal door from the inside.
“Hey,” he said to the three girls. He had a trillion freckles, a shaved head, and the word “tattoo” tattooed on his neck. Mallory responded “hey” as unenthusiastically and gave him their names, which he checked against an iPad.
He waved them in.
They climbed up the bright stairwell and up two flights toward the music. When they trailed in, the room was the size of an airplane hangar, and the windows were covered in black sheets. It was dark and filled with smoke, and Penny felt as if she’d walked into the club scene of a movie where the vampires were about to annihilate everyone.
Penny vaguely made out shapes of people in small groups with red Solo cups in their hands. It took a second for her eyes to adjust, and when they did Penny realized she’d never been to a party with so many people of different ages. A gray-haired man in a tartan suit and eyeliner stopped them, and before Penny knew what was happening, he snapped their picture, whispered something to Jude, and gave her his card.
The flash blinded her momentarily.
“What was that?”
“Party photographer,” screamed Jude over the music, and handed the card over. She went to slide it into her pocket and remembered she wasn’t wearing jeans. Penny slipped it into her bra, as she imagined a girl dressed as she was might do.
The way everyone glanced at them and then glanced away was as if they were waiting for someone. Someone important. Someone who Penny, Jude, and Mallory clearly were not.
Jude reached for her hand in the dark, and Penny clung on for dear life. Jude, in turn, was latched on to Mallory, who was weaving through the crowd to find Ben.
Toward the back was a DJ booth and a blur of faces, outfits, and a topiary of provocative hairstyles. Penny felt the roving eyes and was relieved that she passed as someone of indeterminable importance. Penny glared so as not to appear too terrified.
“Okay,” said Mallory after they’d circled the room. “Now we can get a drink.”
In the back, surrounded by a crowd five deep, there were three bartenders, all with impressive butt chins and hair bleached white. They stood behind card tables covered with black tablecloths.
Penny worried she was going to get carded, but when Mallory elbowed her way in and ordered champagne, she and Jude did the same.